Important Announcement!!

This is going to come as a shock to most of you (if not all), but, after an extreme amount of self-reflection and consideration, I have decided to sell off the majority of my book collection.

I have over 500 books in my possession. That's crazy. I have absolutely no intention on reading the vast majority of them again. So, I will probably keep about 50, but the rest are going to go. I talked to Chris about it and he thinks I should get rid of them, too. See, it's going to be at least a decade before we are going to be in any kind of situation to actually house 500 books and it's not fair to ask Mom and David to keep hanging on to my crap for all that time. So, the books are going to be sold. What can't be sold is going to be given to either a library or a Salvation Army type store.

Of course, family and friends get first pick. :-) In fact, if someone gave me like...$100 or $150 I would let you take every last book. Woo! Eh, Laura B...is it tempting? No? Not really? :-P

I have like 250-300 romance novels, 100 sci-fi/fantasy novels, and other random ones that people can pick though. If there is something I have that you really, really want just ask me or something.

Im going to keep:

• All my Julie Garwoods
• All my Julia Quinn
• All my Mercedes Lackey
• The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
• The Kushiel's Series by Jaqueline Carey
• The first 6 books from the Cynster Series by Stephanie Lauren
• All my books about Japanese (culture, history, religion, language, etc)
• Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern (first 3) and Dragonsinger trilogy
• Harry Potter Hard Back (paperbacks are up for grabs)
• Maybe some of Johanna Lindsey's but I haven't decided

Seriously, I think the rest are up for grabs. I do reserve the right to keep any of my books, even if I haven't listed them. I can't remember what I have. Please don't make me feel bad if I'm giving away or selling a book that you gave me. It's just how it's got to be. If I have somehow acquired a book that belongs to you, you should grab it back and I apologize.

Anyways, I'm not going to really worry about it until we move back home in July, but it's something for people to keep in mind. I just wanted to let everyone know now because I made the decision today! By announcing it, it makes it more cemented in my mind.

So thats that. It's a very hard thing for me to do, but I think it will be a good step for me to let go of these books. I no longer need them. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, it's a day late...whatever! I can still wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving was nice. It's a Japanese Holiday as well so a lot of people had the entire day off. Cool. So Chris and I got up around 10:00 and ate something small. I tried to make pancakes...but it didn't work and I don't really want to talk about it. It depresses me. At 1:45, I started cooking. I made two boxes of Stove Top. Stove Top is easy so it only took about 15 minutes to make both boxes.

At 2:05 we headed off to the Friendship House to have a Thanksgiving PotLuck dinner. Rusty was the ring leader and I must say, he did a wonderful job at it. Lots of people came. There was grilled chicken (no turkey to be had in Izumo!), mashed potatoes, white gravy, tuna gratin, salad, asparagus, spaghetti (made by real half-Italians), Shepard's pie, something brown (maybe squash or yams, stuffing (mine!), and a bunch of other stuff. It was very yummy.

It's all cool to get some many people in one place bringing food that they cooked. Very yummy. Ewan, a Scotsman, brought home made shortbread. Oh my goodness. Is was one of the best things I have eaten in my life. They also had whipped cream that you could put on the shortbread and it was so yummy. Everyone got a good chance to hang out and chat. It was a really fun time.

It's not a normal Thanksgiving, but that's just how you have to celebrate here. Beggars can't be choosers! Plus, it's really fun to share Thanksgiving with non-Americans. :-)

I ate Jellyfish!

No really, I ate jellyfish yesterday. Let's start from the beginning! *time warp waves* do-do-do-do-dooooooooo!

So yesterday, I got up and went to the Board of Education. You see, I have the big demo class coming up soon. This class is for my 6th graders and a bunch of Board of Education people, middle school English teachers, all the ALTs, and other random people are coming to watch the Enya Super English teachers on December 12th. This is a big deal for all of us, and unfortunately I am having trouble with communication with people. You know, the whole Japanese/English barrier thing. So I went to talk to Mihara-san yesterday about fixing my Lesson Plan and laminate some papers.

So I got there and Mihara-san helped me decode the mysteries of the Japanese lesson plan. Then I sat down to do some laminating. By the way, laminating 36 papers takes FOREVER. The laminating machine is sooooo sloooooow. So while I was sitting there, Mihara-san asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with her and Nakamura-san. I was going to say 'no', but then I figured I might as well go. I didn't have any plans and it could be fun.

At 12:00 we went to a little Chinese restaurant downtown and met Nakamura-san and Otani-san. As much time as I spend with these ladies, they are all about 20-25 years older than me so I can't call them by their first names. Maybe someday I can unbend and call them Miyako, Naoko, or Midori...but for now, I will continue with the "-san."

At the restaurant, the ladies discovered that I have never eaten jellyfish before (go figure, right?). I didn't even know you could eat jellyfish! Bleh. But, in the spirit of a fun lunch, I tried the jellyfish.

Ok, for the record, jellyfish tastes NOTHING like jelly! Actually, it doesn't taste like much of anything. It's kinda like tofu and all the other billions of vegetables Japanese folk eat, in that you really need to put sauce on it to give it any flavor. What disturbed me so much, was the consistency. They said it would be really chewy...but I think there is a translation error on watch chewy means (I'm not being funny, I truly do think there are more meanings to that word in Japanese). Anyways, jellyfish is CRUNCHY. I'm not lying. It was crunchy. It's about the consistency of chewing on a raw cucumber. For reals, yo! It was absolutely bizarre. I was think it would be octopus chewy and was really surprised when I crunch into it. I am not a fan of the jellyfish. It will stay in the 'not to be eaten pile'.

Speaking of octopus (which I totally did, go look!), I ate octopus yesterday. I had tako-yaki balls! It's like this little doughy ball with octopus in it. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't a normal takoyaki ball, but a Chinese-style one that you soaked in miso before eating. It did convince me that I should try real tako-yaki. There is a smal stand outside of the apartment. If I can get someone to share with me, I would love to try it.

Back to the lunch! I had jellyfish and tako-yaki balls. I also had this really yummy steamed bread thing with pork on it. We also had this weird green onion thingy which wasn't so lovely and I think something else but I forget. It was a nice lunch, if a little strange. I enjoyed chatting with the ladies and I hoped they enjoyed talking to me, too. They probably did. I'm interesting! That sound conceited, but I promise its not. I really am interesting.

So, yay! I ate octopus and jellyfish. What an interesting culinary day for me!

So this week was fun. But the only thing really worthy of note is what happened on Wednesday.

You see, a long time ago (like a month or so ago) I translated a children's book from English to Japanese. I was going to enter a speech competition and read the book for people. However, something went wrong with the entering, and they were either already full or it took me too long to sign up. So I couldn't enter. I was a little bummed, but my Japanese tutor introduced me to someone who wanted me to read a book in Koryo which is a little town nearby Izumo. I said sure.

A month later, (or Wednesday) I mee this lady at 9:00 and we headed over to a preschool. I thought it was going to be an elementary school, but it turned out to be a preschool. I figured, it would be fine. So they bring me in, give me the necessary 'politeness tea' and then they took me into a large room and introduced me to the children. They were 3-5 year olds and VERY lively.

They sat me in a giant, throne-like chair and then all the children kowtowed to me. You know kowtow...thats when people and on the ground and bow so low that they touch their foreheads to the ground. It was kinda freaky...and ego inflating. *wink*

Anyways, so I read the book no problem. They had me read it in both Japanese and English. It was kinda cool to actually read and book and have the children understand what was going on. I could ask them questions and try to get them to guess what was going on. It's been awhile since I have been able to read a book to the kids like that. Cool!

After the book, it because Question Time!! (質問タイム！！) The question I got were (my answers are in read):

• Where are you from? America, Georgia shyuu
• It's my birthday! Uh...happy birthday! (then we all sang Happy Birthday in English and gave the little girl a hug)
• How can I learn English? Long, boring explanation that totally went over the 5 year old's head
• Why is America so big? To fit all of the people!
• WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
  
• What is your favorite fruit? Peach
  
• What is your favorite Japanese food? Okonomiyaki! Hiroshima style, of course
  

Most of the kids kept forgetting their questions, so they stopped after the favorite food question. After that, it was game time! I taught them Rock, Paper, Scissors in English and then we played "Janken Densha" which is Japanese for "Rock, Paper, Scissors train". For this game, they played a little song and we marched, skipped, walked, and cried around the room and when the music, we stopped and played Janken and the winner became the front of the train and the loser had to hold onto the winners shoulder and they made a train. We kept doing this until their was only one train and one winner. It was really fun.

The next game we played was a trip. We played...Musical Chairs!! However, there are no chairs in the entire preschool. So...how do you play musical chairs without chairs?? Easy! Make half of the students be the 'chair'. I was a chair for the first two rounds, so this meant I had to sit on my knees with my feet folded under me for a very, very long time. I still have some bruises on the tops of my feet from it. It was a fun game though. Unfortunately, you know how sometimes there are some...over zealous kids who play musical chairs and they grab and fight over the chairs? Yeah...they did that in this game, too. So some little kids kinda got womped when being the chair.

On the third game of Musical Chairs, the teachers got the oh-so-brilliant idea of having ME being the chair. On man. Can you imagine the terror on some three year old's face of seeing my big bum come swinging down to sit on their lap? Yeah...it was kinda funny, though I quickly figured out how to sit on my knees in front of the kid to make it seem like I was sitting in their laps. Heh...it was weird. I got out prety quickly because I didn't like the feeling of squishing tiny Japaneses children. Also, it made me feel a bit like a gorilla because I was so much bigger.

Anyways, after I sat down when I got out, the kids all crowded around me and I wound up with three kids in my lap, one on my back, and other pressed against me. Bleh, I hate being touched. But the kids didn't mean anything by it, I was just really interesting. The girls would play with my hair and my skirt. Oh, didn't I mention? I decided to where a skirt because I thought I would just be reading a book and not rolling around on the floor with kids. Ooops.

The kids were precocious monsters though. They would ask about my hair and eyes. One girl even grabbed my boob and said 'oppai!' which just means breast. I was able to shoo them away. During the train densha game though, I had some little kid who hung on to my butt when we trundled around as a train. It was...awkward and I made sure that the other kids hung onto my skirt instead. Kids!

I stayed at the preschool all the way up until lunch. I decided to eat lunch there. They brought out these tables that I had to sit and eat at. Now, these tables, I swear to you, were less than 1 foot off the ground. They were miserably short and packed into a room. So I had to squish between two students and sit on my knees and try to eat without making a mess. It was very difficult and uncomfortable.

The lunch was...interesting. I normally don't have to eat school lunch so I don't get to see the kinda crap they feed the students. I had an egg/tofu quiche thing, macaroni salad that was pretty good, a big piece of pineapple that was delicious, a bowl of some sort of vegetable soup, and sandwiches. There was a half of a strawberry jam sandwich, a half of a chocolate spread sandwich, and two halves of a butter sandwich. Very, very odd. The strawberry sandwich was, by far, the best sandwich they had.

So that was that, after lunch I left with my ride and promised to come back sometime next month (I have a hard time saying 'no'.) I am kinda looking forward to it. It should be fun!

Nothing else really interesting happened this week. On Saturday, yesterday, I watched a Japanese movie in English with my students. It was difficult for them, but most of them had seen the movie many times so they enjoyed it anyways.

People ask me about the weather and I always forget to mention it! Winter has finally made it here. It was really mild for the longest time, and then, all of a sudden, it got really cold! You see, last Monday, we had terrible storms and with the storms came the gray. Winter time in Izumo is really really gray. We have thick gray clouds that cover the sky the majority of the time, which keeps it really cold and damp feeling. We got out the heaters yesterday and last night a slept with two futons/blankets on the bed to keep warm. Stupid winter. I'm a little depressed that its going to be winter and gray until about the middle of May. Boo...thats like 6 months from now! Oh well...

I hope everything is well with you!

Adeventures in Baking Cookies with my Students

So, almost every Saturday, I teach English to some Japanese middle school students at the aptly named, Saturday English School. It's not really teaching, so much as "Let's Have Fun with English!" classes. Today's lesson was making Peanut Butter cookies in English. I was to use only English and the students would follow my instructions and make tasty treats! What could go wrong?

So we started off with a bang. Step 1, put the all the peanut butter into a big bowl. Step 2, put 1 1/4 cup brown sugar into same bowl. And that's where things started going south. You see, I'm in Japan where you really don't bake cookies that often or without a mix. Someone else had picked up the ingredients and picked up 黒砂糖 which is black sugar (better translated as molasses) instead of brown sugar. Also, our measuring cups measured by cc and not by cups. Crap crap crap.

The cup problem was solved with me calling my poor, sickly husband and having him figure out the measurement conversions. 200cc = 1 cup. Now you know! I figured the sugar couldn't be too bad, so we just went ahead with it (at the time, I didn't realize it was like crystallized molasses sugar stuff).

The rest of the making of the cookie dough went smoothly. Then we came to the baking part. I was so excited about today, because I was promised that there would be 3 western-style ovens to use. You see, I don't have an oven. Most Japanese kitchens don't. They just don't like to bake here. So I haven't been able to bake anything since I moved here 16 months ago. Unfortunately, when I finally looked at the ovens, they were Japanese style ovens and not quite the same. It's hard to explain the difference, so just know that they are different. Anyways, we 'gan barimasu'ed and started the cookies.

There were 3 groups making cookies and this is the results of the first batch that went into the oven.




Doh! The black sugar had these little hard, lumpy sugar balls in it and we didn't pick them out on the first go around...so they melted into molasses and would burst. Plus, the cookies burned because we left them in for too long. Sad!

Anyways, the students were pleased with their handy work and set out to make all the cookies. Here's a shot of the girl team at work.


And here is the final results of the cooking:


This was Team Takashi! I had to show the students how to make the cookies, so this was my group. Takashi was my assistant. He's actually one of my favorite students so it was fun to work with him. He doesn't look too excited, does he? Anyways, in honor of him having to work with the sensei, I named our team after him


This is the Team Taisha! These are two students from Taisha Junior High (hence the name). Akira is on the left, Noriyuki is on the right. Man, these two were hysterical. They burnt almost all their cookies and just couldn't get it right. About 2 seconds after I took my picture, they ended up dumping their cookies onto the table. Heh.

This was Girl's Team! I didn't get to hang out with them much because they were far away, but they seemed to really enjoy cooking. Kanako is on the left, Kana is in the middle, and Miho is on the right (Kanako and Miho are from the same junior high school, so they have the same uniforms on). It's not in the picture, but the girls got tired of doing cookies, so they took the last of their dough and made a big heart cookie. It turned out ok...the molasses bubbles kinda ruined it though.


Here's a close up of all three team's cookies. Yes, 90% of the cookies are burned to a crisp, why do you ask?

Let's eat! The students liked the cookies, but I think that's just because they don't know what a peanut butter cookie is supposed to taste like. The black sugar really did ruin the cookies. However, wonderful teacher that I am, I ate a cookie from each group and gave them comments. The cookies...well...they were really bad. But that really wasn't the point of the lesson, was it? Plus, the students said they like the cookies and ended up taking some home!

We forgot to bring bags for them to take the cookies home in, so the kids solving the problem by making green origami boxes to store them in. Does it really get more Japanese than that?

So that was that. As much as the cookies were awful and a complete failure, the day was a success! The kids had a really good time making cookies and talking English and just having fun. Soon will be High School entrance exams, so its good for these kids to let loose a little.

Next week! We are watching My Neighbor Totoro in English! Woo! My job is really, way too much fun!

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

It's guy Fawkes Day which is apparently something they celebrate in Britain. If you have seen V for Vendetta, maybe you've heard of it. I dunno. We may go do some fireworks and fire dancing with out British friends tonight. Who knows! I will let you know sometime!

I have Halloween party pictures! So I thought I would post a few so you can see how it went.



This is all the people that were there. Only 7 students showed up! Can you find them all? One is not wearing a uniform so it might be tricky! From left to right, starting in the back. Miymi is the witch in the back row. Then comes Takashi and Kazuki. Jason is the tall dude next to Chris in the green. They didn't wear costumes. Half of my head is next to Chris. Rusty is a red demon. Mark, in the blue shirt next to Rusty was a pirate but gave his eye patch away. And Eric N. is next to mark in the wizard's hat. Middle Row: Ang is the red devil. Hannah is the pirate lass. Kanako K is the Japanese girl with the tiara. Front row: Shy Yusuke is on the far left, then comes smart Noriyuki (who we call Nori), and next to him is Akira with Mark's eye patch on. Next to Akira is Angelo who was Dracula but took his costume off. Miho is next to him with the pink fluffy thing on her head and Satoko is the Reagan Dracula next to her. Satoko is Rusty's girlfriend, for those playing at home and was quite comical in her outfit. So that is everyone and here are just more pictures to look at.







So that's the party. In case you are wondering, I was dressed as Sailor Moon, a popular Japanese character. It's a terrible costume but it's the first one I have ever made so hooray for me! This is what I was supposed to look like:


But whatever. It was still kinda fun to make.

This week has been pretty normal. Actual Halloween day was kinda slow. My highschool kids were only a little interested in Halloween and my 6th grade kids just wanted candy. What can ya do? I just wore a tiara there, no big costume. I was cute though!!

Wednesday was a bit of a disaster though. You see, when I went out to my car to go to Kisuki for the English school, I found that the battery was dead (I didn't close the stupid door all the way and the little overhead light stayed on until the car burned out). Crap. So I ran back upstairs and traded keys with Chris so I could take his car to Kisuki. I drove my 30 minute drive and got to Kisuki at 5:45. Class starts at 6:30, but I wanted to be early so I could plan the lesson and have some time to relax from my drive. I got to the door and realized that the key to the school was sitting at home on the key ring I left with Chris. CRAP! There was no way I could make it in time if I went back to Izumo to get the keys and then came back to Kisuki. I had 45 minutes to go 60 minutes. But, what else could I do? I tried my best. And...I didn't make it. However, the parents of my students were understanding and just let me do the class late and we got out late. It wasn't so bad, but it still kinda sucked a bit. Oh well...everything turned out in the end.

Thursday was just a blah day. I had a pretty good class with my highschool students (no seniors, which explains it!) and my 6th grade class was ok (if a little boring). Other than that, I didn't do anything.

Friday was a holiday. Culture day! So we slept in and then went to Matsue to go shopping. Chris bought a hat. It's a cute hat and will keep his head warm in the winter. I bought some candy because it made me giggle. We were looking at this big candy display in the middle of the mall. It's right in the middle of the children's section, because it's candy...right? So we walked around the corner and we saw these:



Yes...yes they are what you think they are! Small white chocolate boobies, right above the chocolate truffles. How could I NOT buy them? It's just too funny. Because remember, they are smack dab in the middle of the kid's toys section.




I bought for of them, plus a bag full of other candies. We got truffles, boobies, tiny hearts, hamburger-shaped chocolate, and yogurt raisins (which are totally for Chris).

Now, I hope no one is embarrassed by my chocolate, I wasn't going to post them because I thought it might embarrass people or be uncouth, but I decided I would. You see, in Japan, they are not as sensitive to breasts. They just aren't always sexual. This chocolate is a funny chocolate, but it's not sexy. It's a gag. You can go to any convenience store or movie rental place and see pictures of naked breasts just sitting out. Now, when I see the magazines or videos I tend to giggle and turn red. Japanese people don't even notice it unless they are there to buy it. In America, nudity is almost always turned into a sexual thing, but in Japan it's not a big deal unless it's made to be sexual...THEN they censor the crap out of it. Heh. So anyways...I thought my candies were funny and wanted to share. They are tasty, too! I love white chocolate!

On Saturday, I had class in the morning and then in the afternoon we just spent the day relaxing. In the evening we bought new futon! Ours were so flat that I was getting non-stop back aches because of it. Unfortunately, these new futons are kinda thin to begin with, so we now stack out futons. It's really tall and feels soooo comfortable. I sleep like a little baby.

Today is another day of relaxing. We finally, after a year, bought a wireless router so we can have both computers on the internet at the same time! Fascinating! We were planning on buying a router, but then Chris's computer died and there was no longer a need for one. But since he has it back now, all find and dandy, we got one today. So yay! Also, we just jumped started my Kisuki car. Aren't we boring!?

If anything interesting ever happens again, I will try to let you know! Until then, you keep getting boring posts! I love you all!

Good luck, David, on your upcoming elections!